Five days inside an adults-only resort

WHEN YOU BECOME a parent, the type of places you holiday necessarily changes. Swanky boutique hotels are replaced with family resorts, the sticky tables in their restaurants piled high with crayons, while the only club within walking distance has ‘KIDS’ written in front of it. This echoes a societal shift that has seen adorable rugrats allowed into every pub or neighbourhood bar, with former smoking areas refashioned into jungle gyms. But it also means that young parents are less inclined to seek out a slice of real respite. Little people are everywhere. Inescapable. That is, of course, unless you book a stay at an adults-only resort.

Recently, my wife and I did exactly this. We handed our daughter over to her grandmother and boarded a plane to the Whitsundays, where we checked into Beach Club, one of two adults-only resorts on Hamilton Island. As a kid of the ’90s, I remember Hamilton Island as something of a tropical playground. Warm year round and stacked with outdoor activities, the beaches are naturally crawling with children. But arriving as the guest of an adults-only hotel was different. All golf buggies, dramatic mountains and $38 entreés, it felt a little bit like Jurassic Park meets The White Lotus.

Beach Club is situated right on Catseye Beach, one of the island’s most popular stretches of sand. But the property works overtime to keep little humans out of sight and mind. There are brusque, brushed-metal signs at every turn, warning children and their parents alike that they have strayed too far from their own patches and must now turn back. Save for the sporadic braying of local cockatoos, it is disarmingly quiet at Beach Club. There are no noodles in the infinity pool.

While adults-only resorts are not new, they remain something of a rare gem. In Australia, most seem to be dotted around ritzy holiday destinations like Byron Bay and the Barrier Reef area of Far North Queensland. But they also exist further afield, from the Arizona desert to the Amalfi Coast. The Hyatt has an entire chain of them; the brand’s Secrets Resorts & Spas are proudly billed as 18+ and pop up in heady beachfront locations like Costa Rica, Jamaica, Lanzarote and Mallorca.

But it’s not only kid-free time that draws people to adults-only resorts. Outside of the obvious ‘we’re- about-to-have-a-kid-so-we-better-enjoy-the-silence-while-we-can’ motivation, many make reservations for romantic reasons, like wedding anniversaries; others come to rekindle flames and spice things up in the bedroom. Some arrive solo, or with groups of friends. It seems that ‘adults-only’ hasn’t just become a byword for ‘no kids’ but for top-of-the-line luxury.

“True luxury to me now includes space and time to disconnect from technology while having nothing asked of me, apart from ‘When would you like your spa treatment?’ or ‘Can I get you a drink?’,” says Claire Gemes, owner of Lon Retreat & Spa, a family B&B turned boutique getaway in Point Lonsdale, Victoria. “Over 90 per cent of our guests are couples who seek an escape to reconnect with nature, each other and themselves.” Gemes, who has young kids herself, says the importance of having an adults-only designation is that it validates “some space to escape from the everyday busyness that comes with juggling children and careers”. To that end, Lon’s gift shop even stocks gifts and fresh flowers for the babysitters back home.

MY WIFE AND I ARE expecting our second child – which is an important detail for this story as it means we already know what it’s like to travel with one. Our first daughter had her passport photo taken when she was barely six weeks old and has so far been to more countries than I had by the time I was 12. I don’t begrudge her this, but it does mean that it’s been a while since my wife and I have experienced the underrated joy of waking up and making our own decisions about how the day will go. And so, for our babymoon, we decided to splurge on a place where we couldn’t bring our child even if we wanted to. The prospect was remarkably attractive: cocktails delivered to your sun lounger, pickup service anywhere on the island, a breakfast sitting that goes for four hours, lush rooms we didn’t have to wreck by wedging in a travel cot. A protracted, rainy winter locked inside with a toddler had slowly driven us mad and we were craving a few days of unencumbered adulting, lathering ourselves in various Aesop products and drinking complimentary sparkling water.

Alas, we soon discovered – or remembered – that adults can often be just as annoying as children. As soon as we check in, we find ourselves sitting in the lobby with several other young couples who have arrived at Beach Club with roughly the same idea, most of whom are also expecting. A paediatrician introduces herself and enquires as to the star sign of our unborn child. She then proceeds to tell us the precise longitude and latitude of hers, as well as which celestial bodies may or may not be ascending at the time of birth. We consider letting her know that we’re having a planned Caesarean a few weeks early so the entire notion is bogus but decide to keep that fact to ourselves.

Later that day, in the Instagram-worthy pool by the main restaurant, a man who looks suspiciously like a certain Australian media mogul sets up a GoPro by the edge of the water and proceeds to make out with his much younger girlfriend, blocking everyone’s view of the sunset. It is the sort of behaviour you might expect from a wily teenager. One almost wishes for an overtired dad with mild sunburn to lean over and yell “Oi!” at him. Instead, we exchange raised eyebrows with the couple on the loungers next to us.

In fact, there’s a real What to Expect When You’re Expecting vibe to Beach Club. Swollen young bellies are everywhere, while tanned retirees spend languid afternoons playing rummy. There is no in-between. Everyone is either 30 or 65, spending their precious disposable income on piña coladas and cod roe.

The bliss of having whole days to ourselves is soon offset by the growing fear that we are surrounded by excitable adults with a tendency to overshare. It’s harder to enjoy the second of your two breakfasts when you’re trying to avoid small talk about the weather. Don’t get me wrong: this is not to say we’d rather check into the family- style apartments a few hundred metres up the road, where the shouts and squalls of kids are almost as loud as the wildlife. It is simply to point out the obvious, which is that some adults still act like children, and without actual children around, feel like they can get away with it. Five days in an adults-only bubble reminds us that children can be great equalisers in social spaces, if only because they don’t care about astrology and have never tried a piña colada.

There is also the question of how much this serenity is worth. It is certainly a luxury, not having your child pester you for hot chips every three minutes. At Beach Club, this fantasy starts at $900 a night. Yet everything feels special, with service that is nothing short of impeccable.

“Most of our guests are seeking a getaway from the hustle and bustle and relish being able to sit in the restaurant and enjoy each course at their own pace,” says Ivy Houia, the general manager of Spicers Sangoma Retreat in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. “No decisions need to be made – we do it all for you.”

Houia says the week before school holidays is always one of the busiest times for the hotel, “when parents stay, year in year out, to unplug and recharge ahead of the eventful period”. Coincidentally, this is precisely the time we book at Beach Club. And we can sense the vibe outside our resort is about to become more chaotic, even before we check out.

The truth of the matter is that while we enjoy our time poolside sans child, we still spend a lot of it looking at photos and videos of her on our phones. An adults-only retreat is an effective departure from reality precisely because it has a time limit. You may be able to physically leave them in another state and in the safe embrace of their grandmother, but even well-rested, tanned and occasionally distracted by the antics of other adults, you never really stop thinking about them.

Of course, I say all this from the vantage point of having one extremely easy child. Ask me again in 18 months and it’s very possible I’ll have booked Beach Club in advance – for a month.

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